< PreviousA healthy brain has around 50 thoughts a minute. More blood flows here than in any otherorgan. The richness of our minds is a manifestation of our vitality. Minds don’t wander, but they love to journey. As I approached and entered adulthood, I lost that habit in that classic “putting away of childish things” we sometimes have, ignorant of the fact there isan abundance of instinctive wisdom flowing through those things. It was only when I became seriously ill in my twenties and started to look more deeply into my inner health that I remembered how my whole nervous system had hummed with pleasure when I gave it the freedom to unwind and renew. Freedom is healing. And this – this internal space, which is yours and no one else’s nor anyone else’s business, is exactly the place where you get to cultivate that freedom. People have probably been meditating this waysince the beginning of time – indeed there is plenty of evidence to suggest this. Robust science holds that we are wired to do this and every time we have a few moments absorbed in something, enthralled by something or lost in a daydream, our mind- body system flows freely into rest/repair healing mode. The key is to release effort, to give free reign to your awareness and not to get into a lather about having thoughts. Untethered by the need to focus, concentrate, edit or block, there can be a boundlessness about this space – a wildness – which is extremely liberating and healing if you let it. Science has told us that spending as little as 20 minutes in this space rests and refreshes us more than a whole night’s sleep. And yet there is still a tyrannical lexicon in meditation which demands we sacrifice the freedom of our inner private world in a way we would never agree to do when it comes to outer life. Women learning to meditate are being taught they must be still, be quiet, not think their thoughts, not feel their emotions, not dream their dreams; to ignore their instincts to move, vocalise, laugh or cry. Not be themselves. To shut out the sacred hum of life inside them as if were a swarm of irritating insects. Offering them that freedom is to honour our aliveness. That drift that so many people are taught to resist with all their might when meditating, is actually a sign of going deeper.It helps to understand where the classic image of meditation comes from. That person sitting cross-legged in lotus attempting to block their thoughts is taking their instructions from the traditions of monks - celibate men living in monasteries thousands of years ago. Meditating to block out the world is appropriate if you are a person who has renounced the world, all your possessions and even your own name. It is helpful if you must turn away from thoughts of food and sex and relationship. The women I know are vibrant and vital. They sparkle and sing and laugh and express their thoughts and feelings with fierce passion. They animate life and make it more vivid for everyone around them. You are probably one of these. Imagine then, how you might feel were you to take some time and space every day to pour all that sparkling energy back into you? To feel all these sacred energies as a dance of vitality? To tune deeply into your own shimmering essence and let it tune you up? hy?WWe need healthy inner practices to allow us to engage as richly as we do with life. We are sensory, intuitive and connected to deep currents of wisdom. Allowing all the impulses of life inside us to circulate freely is part of our vibrancy – if we deaden or block these – we lose our vitality. Did you know that meditation, instinctively and beyond the rules, is all about freedom? That it can be about becoming more you? That you are part of a rich lineage going back to your earliest ancestors who knew how to dance with life in their own private inner space, not fight it? I offer you this invitation. Next time you hear a meditation instruction that asks you to supress your aliveness in some way – to be still, to resist, to force, to focus, to anchor, to subdue – claim your freedom to meditate your way. Reclaim that inner world of yours for what it is – a vast and spacious territory, shimmering with vitality and in it, your presence as exactly who you are, no need to edit or filter yourself in any way. You are perfect and perfectly free. Our lives are richly connected and we have many calls on our energies. I have been lucky enough to work and study with two of the great experts in instinctive meditation, Lorin Roche PHD and Camille Maurine. For a rich and wise appreciation of female meditation read “Meditation Secrets For Women” by Camille Maurine, HarperCollins. HOW FREE ARE WE?By Louise Plant IThough how free are we? I have fought for my freedom in the past, been disciplined in my practices, learnt to honour myself and finally surrender to my life choices. My past has been a colourful array of many experiences, with abuse being laced amongst them. At times I felt I had to fight to survive and gain my freedom. Now I know that when I fight it, I own it. Freedom comes much easier when we learn to let go and walk away. I learnt the other day that it is all very easy saying the words “I forgive you”, though forgiveness only comes when we change our direction. Therefore freedom is more thanwords, it is a feeling inside that we can be so free that we can choose whatever we want. How we embrace our freedom is relative to where we are in our lives and to our level of awareness and consciousness, though for the purpose of this article I would like to share freedom in our physical state.keep thinking of the words of the song “I am free to do what I want, any ol’ time.” We can exist in two ways: in a state of love or in a state of resistance, or to put it another way in a state of growing or in a state of dying.Every day millions of our cells are dying and new ones are being born, though it is our state of mind, our thoughts, how we perceive our surroundings and how we feel that dictates the regrowth of these happy or sad cells. We've long believed that we were driven by our DNA, though latest research shows that we are not. We have the power to change our DNA and in turn our state of health, instantaneously. My message here is that we are moving into a new time for healing, a time for instant healing. Cancers that can be healed in minutes, broken bones in minutes and all through means of healing that have been around since the creation of man and his connection to his spirit. This healing is energy healing. Whether using the power of prayer, sound, intent, colour, frequencies or vibration, they are all higher vibrational modalities that enhance the process that the body knows what to naturally be doing. digestive juices we need to becreating next, we just do it. When we cut ourselves, we do not intently stare at our fingers and say “heal, heal, heal.” We just heal. Our bodies do know what to do and how to do it. We just have to get ourselves out of the way. We will see more and more miraculous healing happening in the future, until the 100 monkeys theory kicks in and we start to see a global shift in the awareness of how we can speed up our healing processes. Miracles will become more accepted and common place and for this to happen it starts with you. It’s time to start believing in the fact that every cell in the body wants freedom and love. We arethe resistance that blocks this. Every cell innately chooses growth. When we eat food, we do not need to be conscious of what All I ask from you is to acknowledge and accept it. Be curious. It is easily done. If you are finding that hard, search YouTube for "miraculous healing" and it will help that shift. Appreciate your body and the amazing and miraculous things that it does behind the scenes. Know that what we call sickness, is actually the body "cleaning house", and celebrate and support that process. Know that rest and recuperation are supportive and not a weakness. Wherever you feel resistance, let it go. Do whatever you feel you want to feel better. Reach for a better place and a better space and remember that you make up the rules in your life. Maybe let some rules go now and just BE HAPPY BEING YOU. WHY WOULD I BE ON A MISSION TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO SEE THIS?Because I love the idea of a world that is free. Where we are free to be our own doctors and to make our own life choices. Of course we need medical intervention, though we also have many conditions that we have the power to change and the first step to that change is to believe in the miraculous healing power that our bodies have and to ‘get ourselves out of the way’ and let the body do what it does best. I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte BrontëNext >